Perspective

next warp for AGY: L&H - 16/2 linen in natural with fine stripes of half bleached - the green is the yarn used for tying the warp

A few days ago The Yarn Harlot started a bit of a discussion about patterns and how much information they should contain.

Like knitting, weaving is a technology with it's own language and skill set and designers generally assume a certain level of knowledge of anyone following their directions.  How many people do we know who, confounded at the direction to 'use tabby', didn't and then were horribly disappointed in their results?  Or simply didn't know, and were happy?

Since we don't know what we don't know, we don't know that we don't know it.

Which is where the A Good Yarn series came in.

This series is not for the rank newbie.  It assumes a certain level of knowledge of the reader.  In developing the series, I wanted to address people who were - shall we say - Beginner Plus*.  In other words, they knew how to dress their loom, could do the basic math to develop the right size of warp (width and length) for their intended project, knew the formula for working out how much yarn to create that project, and could follow basic directions like 'use tabby'.  Or how to get the number of epi as stated in the notes.  How to follow a threading and treadling draft and to translate it into a liftplan if they have a direct tie up loom (and also knew what that term meant).

The series is about furthering knowledge, filling in the holes in that foundation and assuming that people want to know more about the subtleties of how to create a cloth suitable for their purpose.

If we don't know the basic characteristics of our materials, how can we choose appropriate yarns?

So Linen and Hemp will continue as I have begun.  The samples will be documented so that readers will know how I achieved the quality of cloth but ultimately it will be up to the reader to decide if that yarn and combination of threading, tie up and treadling is suitable for their purpose and work out the details to achieve their goal.

I had intended to have L&H ready for ANWG in June.  A quick look at my calendar this morning leads me to believe that once again I have been blatantly optimistic.  Between now and then I have the workshop in Langley plus the trip to Sweden and England.  That doesn't leave a lot of time to finish weaving the intended 10 samples, write the text, have it edited, printed and assembled.

So, we will see if I make it....

*some would consider this set of skills Intermediate